http://blogs.4j.lane.edu/chinn/?p=897
Hi Everyone,
I hope you all enjoyed your three day weekend, although it was somewhat of a two day weekend for YG staff who helped with student performances at the Asian Celebration on Saturday.
On a personal note, I wanted to let people know that this past Tuesday my grandmother was diagnosed with late stage cancer. She lives here in town and is my last living grandparent, so this has been hard on me, but I wanted to let people know what’s been going on for me if I’ve seemed a bit out of sorts.
Six items of note for this week.
• OAKS Computer-based read aloud – Attached is a document that contains instructions on the computer-based read-aloud option that can be used for students that need this accommodation on the OAKS Math and Science tests. Prior to testing, you can make the computer-based read-aloud the default setting in TIDE (Student Settings) for individual students, or set this up at the time of test approval in for individual students (Test Settings).
• Fire Drill, Tuesday at 12:45 (pending weather) – If you hadn’t noticed it on the calendar, this Tuesday at 12:45 is our February fire drill.
• Student Restroom Issues – I wanted to let staff know we’ve had some problems in student restroom lately. In the girls restroom by the Corridor hall and outside, toilet paper is frequently being undone onto the floor. In the boys restroom in the Corridor hall and outside, we’re having issues with boys urinating on the floor and walls, and also someone is periodically defecating in the urinals. I don’t know if we want to go to bathroom buddies just yet, but maybe staff can poke your heads into these restrooms when you pass and maybe we can catch someone in the act or at least narrow down when it’s happening.
• Free Class Furniture (Mailboxes and Low Shelf) – I’m cleaning out my garage and I’m getting rid of some old class furniture. I have a wood shelf of student mailboxes, containing 27 slots. I also have a long low wood shelf that I used to stack book tubs on for my class library. Click the links to see pictures of them. Let me know if you want them for your classroom or if you know anyone who might want them.
• Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor – The widening achievement gap between affluent and low-income students has received less attention than the divide between white and minority students, which has narrowed significantly. Here’s an interesting article that Shelley recently shared with Superintendent’s Cabinet.
• BYOT – Bring Your Own Technology to School – Here’s another interesting (but also kind of depressing) article about something being done in a Mankato, MN. The cash strapped district is encouraging students to bring their own technology (laptops, tablets, smart phones, etc…) to school, relying on the power of the cloud to provide tools that any device can access, like Google Docs and other platform-agnostic tools that serve information to any Internet-accessible device.
Have a good four day week!
Allan